Of course, "Maggie May" – the ornate, ringing ode about a seduction from an older woman – is the centerpiece, but each song, whether it's the devilishly witty title track or the unbearably poignant "Mandolin Wind," has the same appeal. Every song on the album, whether it's a cover or original, is a gem, combining to form a romantic, earthy portrait of a young man joyously celebrating his young life. Marginally a harder-rocking album than Gasoline Alley – the Faces blister on the Temptations cover "(I Know I'm) Losing You," and the acoustic title track goes into hyper-drive with Mick Waller's primitive drumming – the great triumph of Every Picture Tells a Story lies in its content.
In the studio I’d just whistle the parts.Without greatly altering his approach, Rod Stewart perfected his blend of hard rock, folk, and blues on his masterpiece, Every Picture Tells a Story. ‘I found the mandolin guy … in a restaurant in London … playing stock romantic songs from the 1930s. ‘I always thought the mandolin was such a romantic-sounding instrument, says. “This is a stunning ballad about a frontier settler declaring his love for the woman who has stayed with him,” the authors write, “while the buffalo died around them, during a freezing winter … he made every pop producer sit up and applaud his audacity for projecting the sound of the mandolin in such dominant fashion. In the book by Tim Ewbank and Stafford Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, the authors, and Stewart, talk about the song. Stewart has talked about “Mandolin Wind” over the years but hasn’t spoken much about exactly what inspired it. There’s no actual chorus or bridge, and the narrator’s love for his lady is reaffirmed when the first three verses, as well as the song itself, simply end with the words, “I love ya.” In his mid-20s at the time, Stewart had only taken songwriting seriously for a few years, but somehow tapped into that inspirational place we all want to visit as writers, coming up with an exceptional four-verse story about love and loyalty. And it’s an unusual piece for having been written by someone whose background to that point had been early rock ‘n’ roll and Chicago blues. “Mandolin Wind” is notable for being a song that is based solely on imagination, or is maybe inspired by cinema or literature, as opposed to any type of personal experience the song’s backdrop is a harsh winter on the American prairie, something Stewart wouldn’t have had much firsthand knowledge of. “Mandolin Wind,” from his 1971 Every Picture Tells a Story album, is a tune he wrote single-handedly that is still cherished as one of that era’s most sensitive and compelling love ballads.
While many of his original tracks have been co-writes, he wrote frequently by himself in the early years. But because of his stylistic changes and his perennial sex appeal, the side of Stewart that has gone largely ignored is his songwriting ability.
Somehow, he has managed to be extremely successful with all of these. Rod Stewart’s career is a large book with several chapters, from his blues-singing days with Jeff Beck (“I Ain’t Superstitious”), to his rock/pop work with the Faces (“Stay With Me”), to his solo albums that included a nod to disco music (“Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”), as well as several albums of his take on the Great American Songbook and other standards.
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